Lessons

Lesson Info

Putting Efficiency into Practice

All right, so this is putting efficiency in a practice we're going to go through the different tools that we need in order to be able to be a sufficient is possible when you are balancing a family and everything else your time seems even more limited van if it's just you when you're just handling one thing at a time that the standard I touched on this before that we're going to use and we go through these processes and you guys don't realize it, but we're going to go through a standard of deciding it's identifying decide very formulaic, it sounds, but we do this anyways, they're just gonna break it down to make sure every action that we do is going to give us the most impact for the amount of energy and time money that we're putting in to everything we're going to use this standard for the rest of the time and for tomorrow as well. The very first thing is to identify the action skin as much power behind the punch, if you will, of an action that you take. I'm all that I have started get...

ting into, like eminem, kickboxing and regular boxing, and whenever you go into somebody while you're in the danger zone, you want to get in as many punches as possible, right and that's kind of the whole goal with every single action we're taking I'm an example for this is that the formal we're going to use is I try to work on a three to one benefit ratio benefit to gesture meant so for every detriment that we have or draw back, you want to have at least three benefits now it's not just straightforward like that. Sometimes you may have a really bad big drawback only three minor benefits that three one doesn't necessarily the benefits don't necessarily out away it, but for the most part we're going to try and take his many benefits as we can to take away the detriment. One thing I do want to note on here is that has saying that you don't have time to do something or you don't have the skills you something that's, not a detriment that's a roadblock to you doing it, you need to see what is there a negative detriment coming out of you doing that act ction see the difference on that? Okay, there's a lot of times people say, well, I just don't have the skills or time to do it, so I'm not going to do it that's not an excuse, that just means you need to find a creative way to you the fear of how to do it or be a little bit more efficient on that so the benefit detriment ratio my example for this we're going to show you guys how this works is blogging. I hear all the time like, oh, I should be blogging. I am not blogging, I don't even have a blogger. Blogging is something that's really, really pivotal pitiable made up that were pivotal to your business. It has so many benefits, I mean, just right off the cuff search engine optimization you can can on the different key words that you have get organic search, you have a fizzy virtual business card and a sense to give to your clients to talk about u f notice we've only done one action. All we've done is blogging session, and then you also are being able to provide and all around view of a session to all clients that come in the door. They can't get that all around feel of a session by going to your party folio and seeing twenty disconnected different images from different sessions. Having one blogger feature procession is also going to allow you to have a client to kind of see the whole story, if you will, of what they can expect, sending expectations I mean, I'm running out of fingers, I think here on how many benefits to blogging, I can't really think of any drawbacks to blogging other than what if I don't blogger on time? I don't even know if that's a benefit or detriment if that's a detriment. And can you guys think of many drawbacks to blogging? Is there anything that's going negatively impact your business? Have you blawg? No, not rhetorical question looking for feedback? Okay, all right, all right, so that's kind of how we want to work with this standard of the three, two, one we're going that's one action! We're blogging a session, we're getting all these benefits and there's e mean there's more of the benefits that could add to the list of blogging you're getting value your clients getting a blogger feature they can share with aunt sally in cia I normally use the example of seattle, but we're actually in seattle, so let's say, washington d c or new york, a cross country it's too hard to email, almost pictures to her? Yes, well, he probably doesn't even know how to open up those pictures and her email anyways. It's easy for her, just the click a link or for her to navigate facebook and so far, one action we're getting all these benefits that you can provide the client that you get benefits of yourself and it's a cross over to networking and as you're going to see it's going to be some educational and informative tools that we can use from new orleans to come in the door so I'm probably up to like seven or eight benefits out of one action here and so then you decide to do the action I've identified I need to walk do I have time I need to make time to do this action if do I have the skills okay I like to write doing necessarily have the skills to tell a story maybe not you don't have to bend of the peer pressure of all those that you see that right the's eloquent blogged post the mere fact that you get images up is way more than not doing it at all so you don't have to set the standard really high start small and work your way up to it it also do I have how much is it gonna cost me plugging is pretty low costs you're going to have to you have a site anyways if you don't have a sight we really need to talk don't let me touch it but we really need to talk but you it's relatively will cost you already expending for a web sites and we're blogging site so why're you not utilizing your actually wasting the money in that potential opportunity so this identifying decide standard that we're going to use with these tools forward obviously in the course I think their benefits that you guys are going to have to do the key is that I think it's on the next night you have to choose it for you. What what course of action to do that is best for you, but success isn't necessarily the money or the number of clients you have already heard me harp on quality of life to me and success as well, but the success isn't having the freedom of choice is in your business. In my business, I want to be able that's the whole reason I work for myself and I take on all those hats that list that I jammed onto the slide earlier because it has a lot of work if I don't get the freedom of choice is not in my eyes when we go work for someone else to make choices for me, I want to be able to have it that is success to me and that's part of that triangle that we talked about earlier about how I made the decision of when to come to creative life was my personal my freedom of choice is and then the conversation or benefits that I get out of it. So all of these, such as like the blogging is you may have a choice of how you want to block do you want to be one of those that rights are really long eloquent thing that talks about the session in parrot with images or you just merely just want to get the images up on the site sometimes when you're busy that is better than nothing at all is there more impact and punch with the eloquent story? Yes, but that shouldn't necessarily be a road block is for you if you're not a writer then that's not for you and you don't want to adapt a message or a brand or a voice that's not yours either a good example of this and I touched on this earlier it's a lot of people say to me that I don't talk like a lawyer would you guys listen to me if I had sat up here and talk like one of my law professors, I apologize that many are watching their great for law but for what we're in in the context where in that's not gonna work and the message you want to get to your clients you have the freedom of choice of what kind of voice do you want to put across and the big thing this is kind of little inspirational always be true to who you are because clients are going to see through it there's no lose confidence in you they're not going to book you and then they're gonna not going to talk about you so you lose all the marketing steam and everything else if I talk one way in e mails that's what I was saying earlier if you've all business and email and you don't throw any creativity and repair images with stuff they're going they're going to see the disconnect whether they identify it or just feel it because this is a creative this is an emotional thing having an emotional connection keep it going ok ryan chesky he is the founder of airbnb which is a big hospitality exchange service he is worth like two point five a billion dollars I found this on instagram this week and I had to throw it in yours I thought it was amazing you want to build something that one hundred people love not something that a mid one hundred million people kind of like on I think there is a big issue right now in the industry that people are trying to keep up with other photographers but there missing with their clients from winning they're trying to keep him to do this certain aesthetic that's great if you like it but you're missing what the people in your community or one thing and so when you were going through these tools make sure you're throwing in who you are with them for your clients to find to able to connect with you all right? So the major goals for this is we've kind of already gone over this we want to do the work up front to avoid doing it later my example for this is I want to be able to sit down now and implement these tools we talk about spent an hour now to get it done because I can probably find an hour after the kids go to bed because we have a hard course that bedtime we've after they go to bed and get this done because I'm gonna be more frustrated, spending ten to twenty minutes for the next week and a half broken up, being ineffective, having kids pull on me, I'm not spending time with them or it just doesn't get done, whereas if I can commit to it, then unable tio to do the front work up front and avoid having to do it later, war off any potential extra steps or issues later, you're going to see this, we want to be as consistent with our clients as possible, so we will have to reinvent the wheel or so we don't forget to tell them something such as like the whole park license thing, we don't want to forget to tell them we don't want to forget to remember it ourselves is almost as part of a workflow and contracts and policies and stuff we're going to make sure that we don't trip it up goes like with that park feed that you may have to have or for the permit you're gonna end up having to eat that cost later, you're not gonna be able to come back to the client later was that opportunity has passed to talk to them about it. You want to be ableto work on the go when everybody asks me and I can sum up this entire probably workshop in this? How do you do what you d'oh? I work on the go I work from my phone, everything I can do is this automated and digitized as possible so that I can work on the go. I tried very hard to be able tio I have everything I cecil by phone already mentioned, like dropbox and all my emails and everything so that I can do what I need to do to respond the clients and get it back out. Obviously, I can't end it on the phone can't edit on the tablet or whatever. I'm sure that functionality it would come eventually, but if I'm tying to a computer that eliminates my freedom, I may as well be going working in a cubicle somewhere if I'm having to be tied to the computer. One of my biggest things is I like to work in the car pickup line are the way our schedule goes in the afternoon the two little the thirty younger ones or home with me they have everyone has rest time that's we're going talk about that and scheduling and I don't care how old you are my husband you gotta go have rest time I gotta work everyone has rest kind but when I picked them up from their nap I get him in the car to go pick up our oldest from school they pretty much fall back asleep for their watching frozen for the five hundred million time I'm able to when I'm sitting in car pickup line to get my oldest son since I had my phone and all the things you're going to see here in a minute ago I can bump ballot a couple inquiry responses follow up with clients I can send them hey just thinking of you e mails I can get that all done with the touch of a finger and not have to behind and carve out time to sit in front of my computer. I always joke with my husband when that I can work from the bahamas as long as I had internet on my camera s o hear that like hey, I totally would love to be able to that's the kind of freedom that you guys want to have you want to make more money, the more efficient you are, the more money that you're going to make now that's being said in the fact that you're spending a lot of extra timing, this is common sense you guys you know this if you're spending more time doing things like I said earlier, you're doing one thing to get one benefits you have to do ten things to get ten benefits to being an efficient we're doing one thing and getting seven benefits out of it your addition, you're about a time you're making more money because when you go to figure up your pricing and stuff, you're factoring in your time right? And hopefully you're pretty much on the mark, but if you under gauge underestimate how much time they're spending doing something, if you have a they keep repeating doing something, you start leaking money and then you're going to wonder when you do sit down with that ciba after you do all the wonderful research that I have provided for you guys in the last segment, you're gonna wonder where all that extra money went in majority of the time it's not because of your lack of pricing maybe, but it's because you're leaking money in leaking time and that's where it goes and you want at least keep your money or make more I want to make more and I want to live my life simple is that I just want to be able to be as flexible as possible so those are the efficiency goals any questions on that? Probably not pretty good all right, so the tools that we're going to talk about is we're actually gonna put efficiency into practice the big thing is being client information up front the more time I have to spend answering e mails, we're doing a physical action the less money than I'm making if I is something that I could put up front to my clients and have done and we kind of touched on this last segment about like the digital contracts if I'm physically having to do something again and again and again I'm losing money so we're going to go over the use of a con a client guide automating different things and digitizing whatever functions that we can as well and if we have time we have scheduling in there so getting digital and paper list for efficiency understand all this okay? So it's not the actions is the results that deliver efficiency you can have the action of doing these things but it's how you do them that makes you really efficient, quotable breaking life all that good stuff so you're probably already doing some of these things so you can probably tweak what you already doing in your business a major point of this is to convert clients are enquiries into clients simple is that when inquiry comes in the door, we want to convert them as much as possible. But you don't want to spend a lot of time. I think somebody said it might have been meghan initially, that you're spending all these hours responding to enquiries. You're not making money at that time. At that point, you've made no money through the responding of enquiries is not until a book that you start making the money right, and so we need to try to reduce the amount of time such is through a client guide as much as possible. This is, and I have, it is digital. I'm also going to show you the print version that you can do as well.